ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2022

October 21, 2022

Richie Berrington

Bellerive Oval

Scotland

Post Match Media Conference

Zimbabwe - 133/5, Scotland - 132/6

Q. Richie, just wondering if you could sum up what you think went wrong tonight.

RICHIE BERRINGTON: Look, I think probably looking at the first innings, we maybe fell 25, 30 runs short of where we'd like to be. We just struggled to sort of get momentum through that middle part of the innings and towards the back end.

Also some credit to the Zimbabwe bowlers. I thought they bowled really well in the conditions. Yeah, we certainly feel we had a few more runs in us in those first innings.

Q. Boundaries an issue in that middle period, from the 7th to 17th over, I think. You guys didn't find the ropes. That's one glaring thing that stands out. Was the pitch maybe a little slower than people thought? Obviously it was a different pitch today.

RICHIE BERRINGTON: It did feel like a slightly sort of stickier surface than we thought. Obviously our first game under lights, and other games the ball seems to have gone through a lot quicker.

Look, we back ourselves to try to make those adjustments. As I said, we just didn't manage to get the momentum with boundaries or get a couple of big overs towards that back end to really get us through with a competitive score.

Q. The sticky nature of the pitch, do you think that's why they maybe gave a couple extra overs to spin and went at you that way during that middle period?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: I think that's a plan they normally like to go to. Looking at how they go about things, there's certainly a little bit of purchase for spin, but yeah, it was holding the surface a little bit.

As I said, I thought they bowled really well, and it made it difficult for us to find some of those boundary options.

Q. How much of a blow is this? Obviously you guys had the success that you had last year with high hopes this year. In terms of where you kind of see yourselves now in the ranking of these teams -- and obviously they're all very competitive in these qualifiers -- what does the fact that you didn't get to qualify, where do you think that leaves you now in that pecking order?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: Look, I think we can take a huge amount of confidence and pride from the performances we've put in. Obviously it's been -- those two games have been disappointing to not get over the line, and we've played a lot of good cricket throughout this tournament, through this week.

But unfortunately tonight, we didn't manage to click. On the night, Zimbabwe were the better team.

Q. If you evaluated this campaign as a whole, if someone told you you hammered the West Indies at the start of the tournament and not go through to the Super 12, you'd be pretty disappointed, but do you think the team is in a better position than they were 12 months ago when you played the World Cup?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: Yes, I think as a team we've come a long way and made a lot of improvements. We took a lot of learnings from the last World Cup.

Obviously it's extremely disappointing not to -- we came here obviously to get through to the next phase of the World Cup, and it's disappointing we haven't managed to do that. As I said, we can certainly take a lot of positives from some of the performances we've put in and the way we played our cricket.

Q. I guess this is more hindsight than anything, but if you knew then what you know now about the sticky nature of the wicket perhaps, would you still choose to bat first and essentially set Zimbabwe a target?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: Yeah, I think looking at the other night games, although the pitch might have been slightly different, it was still a pretty good surface. I think we backed ourselves if we got a good score on the board with the bowlers we have and the way we've generally in the field, we could defend it.

Yeah, unfortunately, we just didn't manage to get to that score we wanted.

Q. You guys didn't play a lot between the last World Cup and this one. Exactly how would you describe the impact of that on your game? Without trying to make excuses, do you think it had some impact on maybe the way you performed in this tournament, or do you think playing more would have helped, I suppose, and if so, how?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: I think you're certainly not going to go wrong by playing more cricket. As I've kind of mentioned before, as a team, the more experience and exposure we get, we're only going to get better. We certainly came into this tournament prepared and ready for what was ahead of us, and I think we've shown that with some of the performances we've put in and the way we've played the game.

As I said, unfortunately we haven't quite nailed it in the last two games when we needed to, to go over the line. Moving forward, obviously, we want to try to get as many games as we can and keep trying to improve as a team and play at the highest level possible.

Q. Obviously it's a bit soon to ask you this, but you return home soon, I imagine, and what is next for Scotland? What would you say the next goals are over the next year or two?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: We've still got the World Cricket League that we're coming towards the back end of, which is going to be really important for the World Cup qualifiers next summer and 50-over cricket.

Obviously, yeah, we need to move on from here, and we'll have a tour in December, and the 50-over cricket will be our focus for a while. We'll be looking to keep playing well there and hopefully finish top of that table and get into the qualifiers.